Dorian Gray
Dorian Gray was a human phoenix hunter of unknown age and roots. His real name is also unknown. What is known is that he is at least about a millennium old. Character Arc Dorian used to be an ordinary human, just like any other. He was born, he was loved, he grew up to survive and create his own way in life, same basic story. He wasn't special. He wasn't a leader of any sort or someone of renown. He was perfectly ordinary. Except for one thing. His best friend, a man he came to refer to as "Noah", was a phoenix. He was brilliant and beautiful and when he finally revealed his secret to Dorian, the pair became remarkably close. However, over the years as Dorian's youth began to fade and Noah remained seemingly untouched by time, the human became jealous. He had also become obsessively enthralled by his friend's power, which was only further fed when the two of them bound their hearts. Discovery of Firegold : Together, Noah and Dorian explored the limits of Noah's power and the many ways it could be applied to various other things, such as clothes, lamps, hearths, food, and magic, but namely metal. Through magic, they discovered they could infuse metal with fire during the smelting process. The metal would flicker and shine with the flames encased within it, being particularly brilliant in gold. : Fire infusions often changed the color of the metal, giving it an orange or red hue. :* Iron yielded a dark apricot. :* Copper yielded a bright tomato. :* Bronze yielded a warm chestnut. :* Silver yielded a pale peach. :* Gold yielded a rich amber. : Unbeknownst to them, this discovery had already been made by a fae priestess across the Atlantic and would eventually lead to the might and beauty of the Aztec Empire. Consequently, it also led to the empire's downfall once fae conquistadors learned of it. They plundered the Aztec lands, called it firegold, and turned it into a commodity almost as successful as the modern diamond. : But the two men took it one step further and infused metal with Noah's phoenix fire. The experiment yielded metals that were resistant to heat rather than conductive, gold, in particular, being impervious to any flame they could create. Becoming a Hunter : One day, Noah and Dorian were attacked by a band of fae trying to harvest the magical properties of Noah's phoenix body. The phoenix suffered a large wound below his sternum, out from which poured a flash of light, blinding everyone around him. They had punctured through to where his body held his inner fire, a flame that burned so bright it burned the retinas of any who looked upon it. : Noah managed to escape with his blinded friend, and after covering up the gaping wound in his chest, managed to heal Dorian's eyes with his healing tears. Unfortunately, not all the damage was reversible and Dorian could no longer see clearly. : Together, they discovered that glass produced by and infused with phoenix fire in the same way they had been doing with metals, also had magical properties. Not only did it help correct Dorian's vision (though not as finely as modern glasses), it also allowed the wearer to look upon bright lights without fear of damage. They crafted a pair of goggles, and with them, Dorian was able to sew up his friend's still-open wound without damaging his eyes again. : Unfortunately, being able to do so fed Dorian's hungry obsession. He convinced Noah to let him do experiments with his body, up to the point of letting the human cut him open and look at his inner fire. : Eventually, Dorian could no longer reel back his fascination, and one day, he drugged his friend with far too much milk of the poppy and cut the phoenix open. He ripped the fire out, and that, combined with an overdose, killed his friend. : When he realized what he'd done, he found he felt no remorse. He had the most powerful thing in his hand, protected by the very gauntlets Noah had helped him create and the heartbond they had twisted into a dark, corrupted scar that brought Dorian's mind into insanity. He couldn't resist tearing apart the rest of his friend's body, feather by feather, every inch of skin, even the organs, and in a sordid attempt to keep his friend close to him as long as he lived, he ate Noah's heart, not realizing the act would restore his youth and grant him nearly 500 years of life. : Everything he'd done to Noah only served to pull him further into madness and deepen his twisted obsession. WIth newfound life and youth, he set out to find more phoenixes, hunting them, and mutilating their bodies just like he'd done to Noah, eating the hearts when he needed. To pay his way, he sold most of the parts he harvested on the Black Market of both Fae and Human civilizations alike, but he kept every single fire for himself, building a collection of burning souls encased in jars of firegold. The Final Years : Over the years, Dorian's existence became known to the Phoenix Elders. He was very skilled at disposing of his victims, so they simply seemed to go missing and were presumed dead, but eventually, they managed to find some bodies. They initially thought the culprits were just very efficient hunters, because usually, only one or two parts of a hunted phoenix would be harvested, typically skin and hearts because they were the easiest to take, tears often requiring torture and feathers requiring the hunter know how to get the phoenix to reveal their wings. Soul fires were the most difficult and often impossible to harvest. : However, they quickly realized a pattern. Dorian's victims, all of whom were male, were always mutilated and killed in the exact same way. The places and ways he cut them were similar, using the pain to fill vials of tears, which, combined with blood-loss, dehydrated the phoenix. He would then force the wings out, strip them of their feathers with great care and attention to detail, harvest the soul fire, and sew up all the wounds before drowning the victim. He would wait just long enough after death for the skin to swell with water, making it loose and pliable for easy removal. Then he would finally harvest the organs before disposing of the body. Even after death, traces of a magical paralytic that numbed any and all heartbonds could be found as well. : Unfortunately, by the time his pattern was discovered, he had become so adept at covering his tracks and evading detection that the Phoenix could do nothing but watch the male members of their species die and go deeper into hiding, until eventually, there were no more males left. : Blaine Anderson was the first to be born in over three hundred years, but his mother, Ariana, kept him hidden and Dorian was unaware of his existence. However, after Ariana left her son and subsequently died, Blaine came out of hiding. It was only a few months before Dorian found him, but he made a grave error. : Both Blaine resembling Noah and Dorian having gone nearly 500 years without a worthy kill, he decided to prolong his torturings and bait the people in Blaine's life. What usually took him only a day, he stretched out to three. It was on the third day that a blood sage, Killian Holt, wrote a passage in his own blood demanding Blaine's safety. His power delivered Onyx, a sheytan and childhood friend of Blaine, to the scene of the crime. Onyx rescued Blaine and left Dorian injured and for dead, allowing Sam Evans, another friend of the young phoenix, to find him and decapitate him.